Art in an Octagon: The Schinkel Pavilion Berlin

The Schinkel Pavilon in Berlin-Mitte is perhaps Germany?s most unconventional art association. Where GDR nomenklatura once held cocktail parties, now Douglas Gordon, Cyprien Gaillard and Isa Genzken hold exhibitions. ... more

Pais Semanal 11.10.2009 (Spain)The El Pais weekend supplement prints the affidavit of the American death row inhabitant Romell Broom - who has now been granted a temporary reprieve following 18 failed attempts to administer him the lethal injection on 15 September. "(...) 15. After applying the towels, the nurse tried to access my veins, once in the middle of my left arm and three times more on the left. After the third attempt to access the veins, the nurse said the heroin had damaged my veins. That comment upset me because I have never used heroin and other drugs intravenously. I replied to the nurse that I never had used heroin.16. The nurse kept saying that the vein was there but could not get it. I tried to work helping to tie my own arm. A prison officer walked over, patted my hand to indicate that he also saw the vein, the nurse tried to help me locate it. 17. The chief enforcement officials said they would do another break and returned to tell me to relax. 18. Then I broke down. I began to mourn because I ached and my arms were swollen. The nurses were clicking needles into areas that were already swollen and bruised (.) 23. After a while, the director, Terry Collins, entered the room and told me they were going to suspend the execution. Collins said that he appreciated my cooperation and taking note of my attempts to help the team. He also expressed confidence in the team performance and professionalism. The director told me that Collins would call Governor Strickland to inform of the situation."

Racism is not the problem in Britain, writes Samir Shah, it's "cultural cloning". And this occurs at every level of society: "Parents from certain Muslim groups, for example, have a tendency to bring up their children in such a way that they never interact with members of other cultures â restricting the ability of their children to get ahead." On the other hand, being right-wing can be a handicap in an industry like the media where all the decisions are made by people who are "white, middle-class, metropolitan, liberal, male â who all think that the best people for the job are, er, white, liberal, metropolitan, middle-class and male. To describe this phenomenon as 'institutional racism' (as many are inclined to do) misses the problem by a country mile. The real problem is what I call 'cultural cloning' â the human tendency to recruit in one's own image. Recruitment, instead of being about picking the best people, becomes a process of finding people like the ones already there. The overwhelming need for a kind of cultural comfort blanket takes precedence over every other consideration â and rules out those whose backgrounds don't quite fit. This is what a 21st-century Equalities Commission should have in its sights. Cultural cloning is, in my opinion, the main source of discrimination in Britain today."

In principle, writes Lawrence Lessig, political transparency is a good thing, but it can have unpleasant side-effects. Naked transparency on, say, donations to politicians would only increase voter cynicism, provoking questions on the amount of cash in play for every single decision made. Would it not be better to eliminate the problem pre-emptively? "A system of publicly funded elections would make it impossible to suggest that the reason some member of Congress voted the way he voted was because of money. Perhaps it was because he was stupid. Perhaps it was because he was liberal, or conservative. Perhaps it was because he failed to pay attention to the issues at stake. Whatever the reason, each of these reasons is democracy-enhancing. They give the democrat a reason to get involved, if only to throw the bum out." Lessig belives that donations should be allowed, but capped at 100 dollars per citizen per cycle.

Further articles: Jeffrey Rosen describes in graphic detail the fight for net neutrality. And Daniel Jonah Goldhagen has a plan that will end genocide forever.

One year ago the magazine Respekt publicly accused Milan Kundera of informing on a Western agent, Miroslav Dvoracek, in 1950's Stalinist Prague (more the background here.) Dvoracek subsequently spent 14 years doing hard labour in a uranium mine. Dvoracek's wife, Marketa, was interviewed about the affair. "We have absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Kundera document (an internal police report) because the other documents, interrogation protocols for example, were unquestionably authentic. In view of Kundera's Stalinist past, it didn't surprise us. ... Neither my husband nor I have any plans to forgive or forget."

Zbynek Petracek complains that Kundera's accusation failed to spark a proper debate about the involvement of Czech intellectuals with the regime. "Ivan Klima and Günther Grass have come out about their involvement with totalitarian regimes - after various periods of delay - but Kundera is still refusing to talk."

Editor-in-chief Zoltan Kovacs can't understand why anyone would want to defend Roman Polanski. Because of his films? "The director does penance through his films, was the argument used in 2006, when Istvan Szabo's informant past was brought to light â as a way of humiliating the whistle-blower. Of course this is extremely unfair, but it does point to the superiority status of intellectuals when it comes to furthering their own interests. A carpenter cannot free himself of his psychic burdens however many beautiful built-in cupboards he makes. These cupboards are really wonderful, the family says with a little sigh, what a shame that Franz had to steal ten years ago. And Franz has no hope of mercy, he will rot in sin."

Roman Graczyk is annoyed by the culture and media types who are leaping to the defence of Roman Polanski: "When I hear people defending Polanski I get the feeling that this some 'Dreyfus case' fantasy. But since nothing of the sort is happening, it has to be manufactured. People are always on the look-out for candidates to fit this role - and now it's been filled by Roman Polanski."

Tygodnik's editor-in-chief Adam Boniecki writes in his obituary for Marek Edelman: "All his life Edelman was 'the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising'. This was not easy for him, especially since he never wanted to take on the role of the deserving veteran. How are you supposed to live if you are historical figure nolens volens? Jacek Kuron wrote of Edelman's worldview: 'For him all persecuted people are Jews, irrespective of when or where they are persecuted. He judges the present from the perspective of the level of commitment to the persecuted and the weak.' That sounds wonderful but it is incredibly difficult." More articles in a special dossier.

Further articles: Andrzej Stasiuk's new novel "Taksim" contains nothing new, claims Dariusz Nowacki. "At least you can say that the author has made sure that the novel can be read in different ways, including one that runs contrary to the realist tradition in which it was written. This prospect is most attractive - decoding the symbols and metaphors is certainly more interesting than some attempt to tame its moody plot. The magazine also features an interview with Stasiuk. Finally: on 10th October, a parade of atheists and agnostics marched through a Polish city - conservative Krakow of all places, where Karol Wojtyla was Archbishop. Tomasz Poniklo elucidates the motivations of the event's organisers and the opposition.

The Cologne-based journalist Shi Ming describes the hermeneutic acrobatics required by China's cultural to reconcile the middle classes with the revolutionary youth in the literary and entertainment industry. For the TV series "Hu Xueyan, Salesman with the Red Hat Band", the green light was even given to a story line from a novel by Taiwanese author Gao Yang. "The heroic salesman was no wealthy heir, but had worked his way up from money lender to modern banker... It was not greed but recognition of social need that motivated Hu in his pursuit of money. It was not the killer instinct that drives bankers to compete that propelled him, but the desire to fight screaming injustice with his own weapons. With so many "achievements" under his belt, he deserved a few extravagances - status symbols, concubines and nepotism. In the end the tragic hero fails, but not because of miscalculations like Thomas Buddenbrook and his grain business. No, out of patriotism Hu financed the imperial war in Xinjiang against the rebellious Uigurs who were backed by the Russian imperialists; his companion, General Zuo left him in the lurch and never repaid the money Hu lent him for soldiers' wages."

In the editorial to this very sparse edition Serge Halimi mentions that the Monde Diplo is having to tighten its belt.

In response to Herta Müller's Nobel win, the magazine republishes two older articles. In an interview from 2005, the Romanian-born German writer says of her identity: "I am torn between two poles. I come from Romania, but I also come from a German minority. My books are received with great enthusiasm in Romania. People are ask themselves what they have in common with my particular case, with my work, because I am not one of them. Either in Germany or Romania. In Romania people think that because I'm German, I can tell their story much better that anyone who has always lived in Romania. In Germany, the people ask how much I am 'one of us'. Some people earn money asking those sort of questions but that doesn't bother me."

And the writer Dorota Maslowska, who was 20 at the time, wrote, in a characteristically candid 2003 review of "The Land of Green Plums: "Before repatriating to Germany, Herta Müller was given no chance to publish in communist Romania - and from the point of view of the authorites, I can quite understand. If people are born and live in hell, it doesn't mean that they have to know about it."

Britain has just republished Philip K. Dick's "Man in the High Castle". John Gray celebrates the novel (the Nazis won the war but the fight is on to find a successor to a syphilis-riddled Hilter) as Dick's most subtle. And he follows with a hymn to Dick's writing in general: "Like Borges and Calvino, Dick uses fiction to do more than portray the all-too-familiar ambivalences of human emotions. More ambitiously, he is challenging the ideas by which we interpret our experience. We think we are embodied minds, which conceive and execute plans of action; we believe our lives reflect these plans. We imagine that the theories we frame about the world are not only useful, but also true. These highly questionable suppositions are Dick's subject matter, and in freeing us from the false certainty that goes with the ruling view of things, he is one of the most liberating writers of the 20th century."

A few days ago the American theatre director Richard Schechner opened the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET), and in his speech he attempted to define the avantgarde today. Nehad Selaiha wonders how he would categorise a number of contemporary Egyptian productions. For example a two hour production of "Faust" "seamlessly staged by Christoph Graf and performed in the tradition of Eurhythmy (the art of movement Rudolf Steiner initiated in 1912) by the [Heliopolis] Academy members, with the help of one professional, Hamada Shousha, and a few German guest artists. (...) Would the culturally mixed,Egyptian/German cast and crew automatically consign this Faust to Schechner's intercultural avantgarde category? Or would you say that since it draws on an art form developed at the beginning of the last century, and one which has a spiritual core and centers on a belief that the inmost nature of the human being can be revealed through movements of the arms and hands, it would better/also fit into Schechner's tradition-seeking avantgarde?'"

In the NYT magazine, Alex Witchel is won over by the hyperactive charms of England's millionaire missionary cook, Jamie Oliver, who has now set his sights set on the American waistline. He explains his (sorry) recipe for success: "'The key to life is to surround yourself with lots of women,' Oliver said. 'Men would just lie to me. Girls say, 'Give me half an hour and I'll find out.' They're intelligent, more loyal and they make things happen. Everything I do is about team, really. So 90 percent of my team are women.'"

Tuesday 27 March, 2012

The Republicans are waging a war against women, the New York Magazine declares. Perhaps it's because women are so unabashed about reading porn in public - that's according to publisher Beatriz de Moura in El Pais Semanal, at least. Polityka remembers Operation Reinhard. Tensions are growing between Poland and Hungary as Victor Orban spreads his influence, prompting ruminations on East European absurdity from both Elet es Irodalom and salon.eu.sk. Wired is keeping its eyes peeled on the only unassuming sounding Utah Data Center.read more

Tuesday 20 March, 2012

In Telerama, Benjamin Stora grabs hold of the Algerian boomerang. In Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic tells the Venetians that they should be very scared of Chinese money. Bela Tarr tells the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Berliner Zeitung that his "Turin Horse", which ends in total darkness was not intended to depress. In die Welt, historian Dan Diner cannot agree with Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands": National Socialism was not like Communism - because of Auschwitz.
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Tuesday 13 March, 2012

In Perfil author Martin Kohn explains why Argentina would be less
Argentinian if it won back the Falklands. In Il sole 24 ore, Armando
Massarenti describes the Italians as a pack of illiterates sitting atop a
treasure trove. Polityka introduces the Polish bestseller of the season:
Danuta Walesa's autobiography. L'Express looks into the state of
Japanese literature one year after Fukushima.
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Tuesday 6 March, 2012

In Merkur,Stephan Wackwitz muses on poetry and absurdity in Tiflis. Outlook India happens on the 1980s Indian answer to "The Artist". Bloomberg Businessweek climbs into the cuckoo's nest with the German Samwar brothers. Salon.eu.sk learns how to line the pockets of a Slovenian politician. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Navid Kermanireports back impressed from the Karachi Literature Festival. read more

Tuesday 21 February, 2012

The New Republic sees a war being waged in the USA against women's rights. For Rue89, people who put naked women on the front page of a newspaper should not be surprised if they go to jail. In Elet es Irodalom, historian Mirta Nunez Daaz-Balart explains why the wounds of the Franco regime never healed. In Eurozine, Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev see little in common between the protests in Russia and those in the Arab world.
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Tuesday 7 February, 2012

Poland's youth have taken to the streets to protest against Acta and Donald Tusk has listened, Polityka explains. Himal and the Economist report on the repression of homosexuality in the Muslim world. Outlook India doesn't understand why there will be no "Dragon Tattoo" film in India. And in Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic looks at how close the Serbs are to eating grass.
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Tuesday 31 January, 2012

In the French Huffington Post, philosopher Catherine Clement explains why the griot Youssou N'Dour had next to no chance of becoming Senegal's president. Peter Sloterdijk (in Le Monde) and Umberto Eco (in Espresso) share their thoughts about forgetting. Al Ahram examines the post-electoral depression of Egypt's young revolutionaries. And in Eurozine, Kenan Malik defends freedom of opinion against those who want the world to go to sleep.
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Tuesday 24 January, 2012

Il Sole Ore weeps at the death of a laughing Vincenzo Consolo. In Babelia, Javier Goma Lanzon cries: Praise me, please! Osteuropa asks: Hungaria, quo vadis? The newborn French Huffington Post heralds the birth of the individual in the wake of the Arab Spring. Outlook India is infuriated by the cowardliness of Indian politicians in the face of religious fanatics.
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Tuesday 17 January, 2012

In Nepszabadsag the dramatist György Spiro recognises 19th century France in Hungary today. Peter Nadas, though, in Lettre International and salon.eu.sk, is holding out hope for his country's modernisation. In Open Democracy, Boris Akunin and Alexei Navalny wish Russia was as influential as America - or China. And in Lettras Libras, Peter Hamill compares Mexico with a mafia film by the Maquis de Sade.
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Tuesday 10 January, 2012

Are books about to become a sort of author-translator wiki, asks Il Sole 24 Ore. Rue 89 reports on the "Tango Wars" in downtown Buenos Aires. Elet es Irodalom posits a future for political poetry. In Merkur, Mikhail Shishkin encounters Russian pain in Switzerland. Die Welt discovers the terror of the new inside the collapse of the old in Andrea Breth's staging of Isaak Babel's "Maria". And Poetry Foundation waits for refugees in Lampedusa. read more

Tuesday 13 December, 2011

Andre Glucksman in Tagesspiegel looks at the impact of the Putinist plague on Russia and Europe. In Letras Libras Martin Caparros celebrates the Kindle as book. György Dalos has little hope that Hungary's intellectuals can help get their country out of the doldrums. Le Monde finds Cioran with his head up the skirt of a young German woman. The NYT celebrates the spread of N'Ko,the West African text messaging alphabet.read more